TKaM DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (mafe)

1 The Finch family has been in the area since a fur trapper named Simon
Finch moved there and made a lot of money which was lost after the Civil
War. Atticus Finch was the first Finch not to stay on the family land. He
became a lawyer, his brother a doctor and their sister stayed at Finch
Landing. Maycomb is a very small, dusty, slow town with nothing much
to do or buy. The time is during the Depression so no one has any money.
Atticus married when he was in his 40's; his wife died when their son,
Jem, was 6 and their daughter, Scout 2. When the book begins the children
are 6 and 10.
2 Dill has snow white hair and is very short but smart. He comes from
Mississippi and stays the summers with his aunt Rachel, Scout and Jem's
neighbor. He has a lot of ideas about what the kids should play and he is
fascinated by Boo Radley; wants to see what Boo looks like. His
background is a little fuzzy and we suspect he might make things up.
3 Boo hung out with the wrong crowd as a teenager. The other boys got sent
off to reform school but Boo's father kept him at home as his form of
punishment. According to town gossip, Boo drove a pair of scissors into
his father's leg one day. He was locked up in the Town Hall basement until
the Radleys brought him home and he was never seen again.
4 They have never seen Boo and they believe the stories that say he comes
out at night and haunts the town, eating raw animals that he catches. The
children are terrified yet fascinated by his story and the gossip they have
both heard and made up.
5 The novel is a retrospective story, but the voice is one that tells about
events from a child's (Scout's) perspective, rather than as an adult
reflecting back.